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NSA chief leaks info on data sharing tech: It's SharePoint

Spies really are just like us

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The NSA has admitted that the organization's use of Microsoft SharePoint allowed an unnamed sysadmin to leak information.

In what can be perceived as either a ringing endorsement of SharePoint's "collaborative power", or a depressing admission that, yes, spooks use the same infuriating software as we do, NSA chief General Keith Alexander indicated recent leaks came from a sysadmin being given SharePoint privileges.

"This leaker was a sysadmin who was trusted with moving the information to actually make sure that the right information was on the SharePoint servers that NSA Hawaii needed," Alexander says in response to a question by The Washington Post about the threat of insider leaks given the Buckshot Yankee penetration in 2008 and WikiLeaks, which we take to be a reference to the Hawaii-based mega-leaker Edward Snowden.

The leaks represented "a huge break in trust and confidence," Alexander said, who currently leads an organization famed for its various unpopular programs that monitor the communications of basically everyone in the world, and intercept communications at any time in any place for reasons that are never stated.

Keith "break in trust and confidence" Alexander proceeded to observe that the fact a sysadmin was able to then distribute this SharePoint info outside of the NSA meant that "there's issues we've got to fix there."

The problem, Alexander noted, is that after 9/11 the NSA had a "need to share" information with other agencies about threats. (This sharing did not and has not extended to the American civilians whom the NSA is meant to guard rather than spy on.) The leader of the mass interception organization pointed to measures the NSA is introducing to make sure that sysadmins cannot leak information to the public, such as working in pairs and making it difficult to download information.

But this could be difficult. "As you may know, sysadmins need removable media to do their job," Alexander said. We reckon moving off of SharePoint could be a start, especially since research into attacking the software was due to be presented at this year's DEF CON conference. ®